Supporting the inclusion and achievement of learners with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD)

The inclusion of learners with Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) has become a key issue for education in the past few years. This may be because there is increased awareness of ASD as its definition has become broader. Also the trend towards inclusion has made the needs of this group of learners more apparent. Perhaps, also, the pressures on schools in recent times have made schools less concerned with the emotional and social development of learners than their academic achievement needed for league tables. This in turn has meant that children with autism have had to been labelled in order to have their needs met.

Classically, autism was associated with a group of children described by Leo Kanner in the USA in the 1940s who appeared to be emotionally distant and reluctant to engage in social interaction. A study at the end of the Second World War by an Austrian clinician, Hans Asperger, was discovered in the 1970s by Uta Frith. This described older children than Kanner dealt with, who had poor social and communication skills, yet appeared to have elaborate language but with circumscribed interests. This eventually led to the concept of the Autistic Spectrum which encompassed a larger group who shared common areas of difficulty.